Reinstalling Boot Disc Not Working

Following the complete and epic death of my old computer (still don't know what died, could have been anything short of the hard drive which I know works fine) I went out and bought a new motherboard, processor, memory, power supply, and graphics. After fighting with cables all afternoon I finally got the damn thing turning on, only now it won't boot from the lovely boot disc I made for it this afternoon with Windows 7 RC 7100, I believe.

I can tell the motherboard to boot from the CD/DVD drive no problem, and it seems to try to do that. However, it gives me an error message saying a file in the /windows/system or whatever directory is invalid or corrupt, and tells me to reboot and insert my dvd to repair the installation. I'm pretty sure this is due to the hard drive still having the old Windows 7 install I had on there before the death, so I formatted it using my netbook (running XP) and a hard drive enclosure I had handy and tried reinstalling the hard drive and rebooting from the disc. Same error messages.

If I continuously hit ENTER to get past all the "WHOAMG CAN'T FIND FILE OR CORRUPT" messages, I can get the "Starting Windows" screen to pop up for a few seconds, before the error messages start up again. Could it be that the downloaded ISO got messed up? I originally downloaded it onto a mac, then burned it to a dvd from the mac, then copied it to a different windows machine, then burned it using iso burning software to another dvd. (I'm currently cursing the fact that I don't have an external CD/DVD drive, believe me!)

Does anyone have any idea how the hell I can get my computer working? It's my first homebuilt monster, and I've gotten all the stuff plugged in right, it's just a matter of beating Windows 7 and my hard drive into submission.

Specs:
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W
Power supply: RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-630SS 630W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V
Memory: OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Graphics Card: ASUS EN9500GT OC/DI/512M GeForce 9500 GT 512MB
Cooling: The case has several fans built in, and as for processor cooling I'm using the stock AMD fan. I'd rather not risk voiding the warranty as it's my first build.

Please help; I've been working on this computer since 4 PM EST yesterday (August 14th), and I'm about to tear my hair out. I've had to live with a net book as my main computer for the past two weeks, and I'm going to gnaw someone's arm off if I can't use my beast soon.

(running XP) and a hard drive enclosure I had handy and tried reinstalling the hard drive and rebooting from the disc. Same error messages.

If I continuously hit ENTER to get past all the "WHOAMG CAN'T FIND FILE OR CORRUPT" messages, I can get the "Starting Windows" screen to pop up for a few seconds, before the error messages start up again. Could it be that the downloaded ISO got messed up? I originally downloaded it onto a mac, then burned it to a dvd from the mac, then copied it to a different windows machine, then burned it using iso burning software to another dvd. (I'm currently cursing the fact that I don't have an external CD/DVD drive, believe me!)
There are a couple of work arounds I would suggest.
Since you have a working xp system I would recommend the following:

1. Download os 7 on the xp machine.
2. Burn the image as slow as possible on the xp machine.
3. Take the new os 7 and insert in the disk drive on your new machine.
4. On your new system enter the bios and change the boot priority of your cd/dvd drive to first boot drive.
5. save bios setting and restart your system.
6. Select new complete install.
7. Amazingly the install proceeds very quickly so follow the prompts.

There have been reports that making or down loading the image and burning the iso at faster speeds tended to corrupt the os.
After successfully installing the os on your new system your next challenge will be installing any devices you attach.
A word on that, make sure any peripherals you want to install on your new system are NOT connected when doing the complete install.
Let us know how it goes.

Adrian

Thanks for the replies guys!

I've tried redownloading the iso (on my second download of the day, actually) and burning it at the slowest speeds I could on the school XP machines, as my netbook doesn't have a DVD drive. No luck; I continued to get the error messages.

I also tried to install it to the hard drive using the enclosure on an XP machine, but the Vista install said it wasn't possible because it didn't support the usb format or what have you for connecting. Utter bull-crap in my opinion, but it means I can't install it from an outside source.

Like I said, I'm using the currently available version of the Release Candidate from Microsoft's website.

The error messages look like (format wise) the messages you get when the computer shuts down incorrectly and it wants to know if you want to start in safemode or whatever. They all seem to be complaining about installation files or files on the hard drive, but I can't figure out which it is.

You stated the HDD is ok, but after reading your story,
I am almost convinced your hard drive is damaged.

Try installing on a new harddrive.

greetz.

Really? It's not clicking, and I can copy and paste files to and from it from the XP machines, and use it as an external hard drive.

brynnflynn said:

Really? It's not clicking, and I can copy and paste files to and from it from the XP machines, and use it as an external hard drive.

I suspect your issue to be hardware related.
I tried a similar approach using an external hard drive to install the iso and my system bombed. To further aggravate, the system its trying to install from an external HD.
Since you have already have a financial/sweat investment I suggest that you purchase an internal hard drive and install it on the mobo. And try it again.

Hi brynn,

It may help if you can post what the message is.

brynnflynn said:

Really? It's not clicking, and I can copy and paste files to and from it from the XP machines, and use it as an external hard drive.

First, it doesn't have to click to be damaged.

second, copying a few files is different than installing 11gb of files to it.

Meaning sometimes you discover a disk is damaged when you write to sectors that hadn't been used before, or for a long time.

Do a chkdsk on the drive. I'm pretty sure it will either find a lot of damaged sectors, or crash all together.

greetz